


The Cameraman

by thelocalsleeper



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-03 14:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15821169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelocalsleeper/pseuds/thelocalsleeper
Summary: As a general rule, you probably shouldn't respond to freaky emails from anonymous senders. Ryan does not follow this rule.





	1. Chapter One - Ryan

**Author's Note:**

> wikihow how to write???? i just thought this would be fun honestly. btw ryan and shane's relationship here is written with all the clarity and definition of a cryptid photograph so interpret it however u like honestly. romantic? valid. platonic? also valid

_“...department of agriculture Commissioner Salazar said changing weather patterns were to blame for unusual livestock behaviour, and encouraged ranchers and breeders to attend this weekend’s seminar on Beula Avenue in Pueblo. If you’re out late tonight, you may see some low-flying helicopters near Silverthorne and Leadville. Seems the Araphao park services will be spraying for an infestation of boxelder bugs…”_

The drone of the podcast host’s voice on the radio isn’t even close to interesting, but at the very least, it’s comforting to not be sitting in silence as he drives the next few miles to what’s by far the most ominous place he’s ever been in his entire life.

And he isn’t even going there for a video. Not a funny one, anyway.

Ryan knows he’s done a lot of stupid things in his life. Even next to that one time he used a Ouija board, this is the stupidest.

Why is he even here? Sure, the email asking that he come and check out Mount Massive had been sent to him specifically, but that didn’t mean he had to read it, or actually go--so why had he gone? To play the hero? He’s a video editor from fucking _BuzzFeed_ , goddammit, he shouldn’t be the one to deal with actual human rights abuses committed by a faceless giant of a corporation.

And yet here he is! Doing exactly that!

Why? Why in the hell? Sure, Ryan has morals and shit, but presumably so does everybody else. Why couldn’t he call the cops, say, “hey, I got a super sketchy email from some unknown email address asking that I come check out some asylum fifteen hours from here, and you should probably make sure no one’s, like, dead”? Maybe he doesn’t trust anybody else to do the job, but it’s not like he can do it any better.

No time to consider the logistics of coming here now, because the asylum is looming--not coming, _looming_ like a tower out of fog--into view, and Ryan’s been so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice the podcast host’s sandpaper voice distort and fade into static. Is his radio broken? This whole situation feels uncomfortably like the opening to a really shitty scary movie.

Can’t be a problem with his radio. His cell reception cut out abruptly a mile back, more like a jammer than lost signal. Maybe it’s the same thing with the radio? The closer he gets to Mount Massive, the more stuff he’s relying on to help him through this start to fail. It’s kind of ominous, if he’s being honest, and Ryan is an honest guy. This is weird and foreboding as hell.

He pulls into the long-ass driveway and finally he’s in the parking lot, staring up at the scariest building he’s ever seen in his twenty-six years of living--and he’s a producer of a _ghost-hunting_ show! He’s seen the Ohio State Penitentiary in the flesh and it doesn’t even compare! This is the stupidest fucking decision he’s ever made!

But is he going to go in? Of fucking course he is, because he’s curious and empathetic and some small part of him, no matter how badly he wants to quell it, does want to play the hero. Hold somebody accountable for all the horrible shit that’s happening in there, maybe right now. _Allegedly_. Nobody’s ever been able to prosecute the Murkoff Corporation for anything, but everybody knows that Murkoff has a long track record of disguising profit as charity. Never on American soil, though. Ryan has no idea what they thought they could get out of an intimidating building full of crazy people, but whatever it is, it has to be big.

Might be the story that finally breaks the bastards. If he can find proof that they’re actually hurting people in there, that is.

And it’s still there, towering over him, daring him to turn around and go home. Ryan feels sick just looking at the place; he can’t imagine how he’ll feel once he’s inside. What he’ll find. What if there are, like, dead people in there? Maybe Murkoff kills its patients and gives their cadavers to those people who cut open dead bodies. For science, right?

No, that’s stupid. What is this, 19th-century London?

Ryan doesn’t want to go in, but he’s going to go in, goddammit. He pulls out his phone to read over the email one last time, make sure he knows what he’s looking for, what he’s here for. Honest to God, it gets more foreboding every time he reads it:

_September 17, 2019_

_From: 10260110756@mutemail.com_

_To: ryanbergara@gmail.com_

_Subject: TIP / Illegal Activity at Murkoff Psychiatric Systems_

_You don’t know me. Have to make this quick; they might be monitoring._

_I did 3 weeks of software consult at Murkoff Psychiatric Systems’ facilities in Mount Massive Asylum. All sorts of NDAs I’m very much breaking right now, but seriously, fuck those guys._

_Terrible things happening there. Don’t understand it. Don’t believe half the shit I saw. Doctors talk about dream therapy going too deep, finding something that was waiting for them in the mountain._

_People are being hurt and Murkoff is making money._

_It needs to be exposed._

Every time he reads it, Ryan can’t really help but admire this guy. Takes guts to do something like this, to say things like this against a corporation as powerful as Murkoff. Ryan probably isn’t half as brave as this guy; whoever the fuck he is, he clearly has balls of steel. But he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try, so he will. He’s gonna go in there and record the evidence that Murkoff is profiting off human suffering, put it all together in a neat little PowerPoint, and broadcast it all over the Internet, and it’ll be over.

Even with that resolve in mind, it takes some convincing and a couple of minutes for him to get out of his car and actually make his way up to the gates. He’s a bit surprised to see absolutely nobody around. No one patrolling the grounds, no one in the parking lot to make him pay a fee in order to park or tell him that visiting hours are over, or some bullshit like that. There’s an oppressive air hanging over the whole area, so quiet that Ryan can hear his heartbeat, as if something has died and no one can quite believe it, so they’re just wallowing in silent, grief-tinted shock.

The building itself, gray brick, four stories, Mount Massive Asylum in all its frightening glory, gives off much the same vibe as that house with the eye-windows from The Amityville Horror. Like it wants to eat him.

But that’s stupid. It’s just a building. A terrifying building full of crazy people, but just a building nonetheless.

The main gates are locked, to no one’s surprise, but there is actually a smaller side gate left open. Weird, but he isn’t complaining. And it’s kind of cold for a September night, so as scary as the place is, Ryan’s kind of eager to get inside and out of the wind. He makes his way across the grounds and up the steps to the front door, which is, even more unsurprisingly, locked. He’ll have to find another way in.

A look around the perimeter of the building reveals that there’s some construction going on around the administration block, and a window open on the second floor. The sun is already setting; Ryan doesn’t really want to spend much more time in a creepy courtyard at night. He squints--a flock of some kind of bird, geese maybe, are flying through the dark, barely visible. They’re not flying in that V formation that geese usually fly in--it’s as if something spooked them. Looking back, Ryan realizes that they’re the first animals he’s seen in the last two miles of the drive, which, honestly, just adds to the creep factor of this place.

He grabs a ladder and makes his way through all the boards and shit, and manages to slip in through the window, pulling his camcorder out. A GoPro probably would’ve been easier, but the camcorder, if a touch outdated, makes him feel safe. If he gets attacked, he can, like, swing it at the person’s head. A GoPro’s not gonna do shit for him in a fight. And then the lightbulb in the ceiling light breaks, because of fucking course it does, and Ryan’s whole life is a series of horror movie cliches. He’s left to turn on the night vision on his camcorder and stumble over piles of debris and scattered case files to the door.

He’s inside.


	2. Chapter Two - Shane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pro tip: if you're going to expose a powerful corporation for its crimes against humanity, wait until you're not working for them anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone reading this so far: thank u so much!! also i would die for u

He wonders, vaguely, if it’s possible to die of anxiety. Shane only just sent the email, and already his heart is beating so hard he can see the skin over it moving, like it’s going to pound right out of his chest. Maybe it will, and he’ll be left sitting in a darkened server room on a concrete floor, with a beaten-up MacBook in his lap and his heart in his hands, waiting for one of the journalists he just emailed to respond.

Stop thinking about morbid shit, Shane. Work to do. He clambers to his feet, knees shaking, heart still hammering like he’s about to die. If anyone working here finds out about the email, he might. Literally. No one’s been roughed up by security in a while, but a few days after Shane started, some guy showed up to his station with a split lip, a wicked black eye, and a couple of his fingernails missing. His other coworkers gossiped, said that all the guy did was text his boyfriend about when his contract ended. Shane really doesn’t want to think about what security will probably do to him if they find out he spilled company secrets to an outsider; even worse, he told them what Murkoff was doing at Mount Massive. He has an uncomfortable feeling that he probably wouldn’t leave the asylum with all of his fingers.

Somehow, he manages to stumble to the door, flinching when someone grabs his shoulder as he walks out. Turning around, it’s just Jen--a coworker of his, another software consultant. He sees her occasionally in the hallways, and she’s nice enough, even if she has an unfortunate habit of creeping up on him.

“Hey, man,” she says, a little cautiously. “You good? They’ve paged for you three times already, keep saying it’s urgent. Something about the engine.”

The engine? Fuck. He hates working with the engine, and more specifically the guys who run it most of the time; they’re pricks, and they give off a bad vibe. Everything about the engine gives off a bad vibe.

“...What were you doing in there, anyway?” Jen’s staring at him, brow furrowed. She peers through the open doorway to the server room, and looks back to him. “I thought you were just a software guy?”

Shane’s mouth has gone dry. He feels like if he tries to speak, he’ll choke on his own tongue; fortunately, he’s saved from that gruesome death by someone paging him again. God crackles over the intercom, _Shane Madej, report to Morphogenic Engine Monitoring immediately_. Or at least, whatever passes for God at Murkoff. Maybe the CEO? He mumbles something incoherent to Jen and makes his way down the hallway, hating every step that takes him closer to the Morphogenic Engine.

He still has no idea what the Morphogenic part of the name means, and still no one will tell him what the engine itself is actually for, or how it works, or why they need to hook patients up to it. Or who the fuck Billy Hope is, or what Project Walrider is...he should probably stop thinking about questions he won’t get the answers to. Not productive. And it’s not like he cares, anyway; let it be a mystery. Shane just needs to get through this last week of his contract and he can go home to LA, to Sara and their cat, and forget about this creepy-ass place nine hundred miles from everything he loves. Or, better yet, watch as it goes up in flames.

Shane hadn’t really noticed before now, but the guy at the admittance station looks like he’s witnessed a murder. Maybe he has. He barely glances at Shane, his eyes bloodshot and colourless, before allowing him access, muttering something along the lines of what took you so long? If only he knew. He hurries into the observation room.

Some guy in a hazmat suit, fiddling with something involving a monitor, straightens up and glares at him. “Madej? You’re cutting it close. New patient’s incoming, and arterial spin’s still dark...we need you at the front terminal.” What the fuck is an arterial spin? Who knows; he sure as hell doesn’t. He makes his way to the front terminal, right up against the glass that separates the observation room from the Morphogenic Engine. He’s already counting the seconds until he can leave--he hates the caverns underneath Mount Massive, hates the feeling of being stuck underground and knowing that the air he breathes is recycled. Even in a facility as big as this one, it’s kind of hard not to feel claustrophobic.

“Ah, for fuck’s sake, they’ve got Kornfeld out of his cell. Page this Madej guy again, tell him he’s got fifteen seconds to keep his job. Christ...” Yet another engine worker turns and stares at him as he maneuvers into his desk chair; Shane can’t look him in the eye. “Madej. Where’ve you been? The functional imaging interface isn’t working with the ASL. We’ve got a patient thirty seconds out and we’re blind inside his head.”

“I could call in and ask them for a delay,” says some kid who can’t be older than fourteen.

“No, we don’t need another performance evaluation. Mr. Madej here is going to have us up and running before we know it. Right, Madej?”

“Yeah, sure,” he mutters, still not looking the man in the eyes. He inhales sharply and gets to work, hands twitching the slightest bit as he types. A couple of minutes and everything should be set up.

“Uh, James?” The fourteen-year-old is talking again. “fMRI’s still dark.”

“You’re doubting our friend Shane? I would consider that an insult to his programming skill and considerable dedication to the Murkoff Corporation.”

Look, maybe Shane is on edge, but that was definitely a thinly-veiled threat.

“Fuck me, they’re bringing him in.”

A collective, almost oppressive hush falls over the room. Everyone is staring through the glass at a man screaming, being dragged in handcuffs over to the engine. Shane’s heard the name Kornfeld before, on TV or something. Who is this guy again?

The patient, whoever he is, won’t shut up. “I _KNEW_ it was coming! You filthy fucking machines! Not again, no, NOT AGAIN! _FUCKING_ \--I know what you’ve been doing to me. I know what you’ve been--”

_Fuck, fuck, fuck_. Shane sees the guy get free before anyone else does, and someone screams--the patient, Kornfeld or whoever he is, bolts over to the glass, slams his fists against it. Looks Shane dead in the eye, his own wild with fear, yelling again.

“Help me--don’t let them do this! I _KNOW_ you can stop this! You have to help me, you can’t let them...” He trails off, body going slack as a guard gets behind him and sedates him. They drag the guy over to the engine and start hooking him up.

Shane manages to sit up straight and get back to work; he didn’t realize how badly that patient had startled him, but if his heart rate had slowed some, now it’s right back to hammering so hard his chest hurts. He really needs to calm down.

The engine runner is back to staring him down. “Quickly, Madej. A head will need to roll if perfusion monitoring isn’t up and running when they put him in the engine. Five seconds, four, three...”

Shane hopes, vaguely, that the head that rolls isn’t his.

The fourteen-year-old speaks. Who even is this kid? What’s his job? “Arterial spin labelling is online.”

“Good. Positioning imaging planes.”

Shane stares into the middle distance for a while, wondering what that Kornfeld guy meant by _I know you can stop this_. Seriously, what the fuck did that mean? Couldn’t have been about the email...could it? No. That’s impossible. He jumps when the engine-runner grabs his shoulder, maybe a little rougher than is really necessary, thanks.

“You’re done, Madej. You can leave.”

Thank fuck. He practically bolts out of his chair and gets the fuck out of dodge, wondering if the guy can sense how nervous he is. He just needs to get back to the server room and grab his laptop, and everything will be absolutely fine. He does manage to get to the server room okay, but when he actually goes over to grab the computer--

“Somebody’s been telling stories outside of class.”

_Shit. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck_.

His supervisor’s supervisor, Eugene Lee Yang, is hunched over his laptop, reading the email.

Shane’s so fucking dead. Eugene is going to tear out his jugular and drink his blood. He’s going to kill him right here.

Maybe not, but more security guards than are really necessary file into the room; one of them shoves him from behind, and he scrambles to get as far away from Eugene as possible. Shane ends up with his back pressed to the concrete wall, staring up at a man who’d see him skinned for a promotion and a martini.

“Mr. Shane Madej, consulting contract 8208. Software engineer with a level 3 security clearance. Graduated _cum laude_ from Berkeley, yet somehow still not smart enough to realize that the last thing a fly should do when caught in a spider’s web is move.” Eugene shatters the laptop, comes to loom menacingly over him. “Somehow idiotic enough to think that a borrowed laptop, Tor router, and firewall patch would be enough to fool the world’s leading supplier of biometric security. Stupid, Mr. Madej. No, more than stupid...in fact, that was _crazy_.”

One of the security guards, a particularly giant guy who could snap and probably would enjoy snapping Shane’s neck, grabs him by the shoulder and hauls him to his feet, handcuffing him. Eugene grins, far too sincere and light-hearted for the situation. His voice, however, is cold.

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to have you committed. Mr. Madej, will you willingly submit to confinement?”

One of the guards punches him. He hisses and can taste blood in his mouth from where his teeth cut into his cheek, and doesn’t say anything. Wouldn’t make a difference.

“Did you hear that, agent?”

“He said yes.”

“Great. Oh, and...did we just hear Mr. Madej volunteer for the Morphogenic Engine program?”

“That we did.”

“That was brave indeed, Shane. The Murkoff Corporation and the onward march of science appreciate both your bravery and your sacrifice. Maybe you could administer Mr. Madej here a light anesthetic?”

“Gladly.”

A guard punches him again, hard enough to set his ears ringing. And again. His vision’s gone blurry at the edges. Again--fuck, he’s dead. They’re going to kill him for this and feed his corpse to vultures. Sara will never know what happened. _Fuck, fuck, fuck_.

The world goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the record: i have no idea what im doing! please tell me if you like it, and what you think can be improved!


	3. Chapter Three - Ryan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When exploring an abandoned building, it's generally a good idea to locate an exit first. You never know what could go wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello yes i know this took like 8 years for me to post. i wasn't really sure about this one, since i'm still not that confident in my writing abilities, but i'm not giving up on this! hope u enjoy lol

Listen, the _are there dead bodies in there_ thing was a joke. Ryan isn’t all prepared when he sees an actual fucking _massive_ bloodstain on the wall, opposite the door he just came out of.

Like, what the fuck? He knew this place was going to be creepy, sure, but not covered-in-bloodstains creepy. He kind of wonders whose blood it is, if they managed to get patched up. If they’re still alive.

No, fuck that, they’re definitely still alive. Nothing bad is going to happen here, and Ryan’s creeped out enough without thinking about stuff like that.

Again, though, where is everyone? He just climbed through a fucking window into an abandoned office, so he expected some kind of alarm to go off, and maybe he’d be escorted off the premises or something, but...no. So far there have been absolutely no consequences to him breaking into a government facility. There’s nobody around--no staff, no patients. As if Mount Massive could get any more ominous.

Seriously, this place is a wreck. The office he just came out of looked like a hurricane had ripped through it, leaving the splinters of a broken bookcase and case files scattered across the floor. The hallway itself looks like it belongs in the Overlook Hotel; the walls are a dingy beige, the floorboards worn and creaking when he shifts his weight. Even if he doesn’t pay attention to the massive fucking _bloodstain_ on the peeling wallpaper, there are still files scattered randomly across the hall, floorboards broken, a window smashed. The smell of blood is everywhere.

What happened here?

In retrospect, he’s probably not the best person to investigate places like this; Ryan’s brave, sure, but easily scared, and not so brave that he’d let his ambition earn him a tour of hell on earth--which, even if the description is a touch dramatic, this place is certainly shaping up to be. Every single cell in his body is screaming _leave leave leave_ as he looks around. And, yeah, leaving would be the best decision, the thing a normal person with self-preservation instincts and a regular amount of curiousity would do. But is Ryan a normal person with self-preservation instincts? Obviously not, given that he’s still fucking standing here, even with at least half a liter of blood drying on the wall in front of him.

If he’s going to stay here, which he really shouldn’t, then he may as well get moving. Maybe find his way down to the lobby, see why the hell no one’s around. So he starts walking, shutting off the night vision on his camcorder; if anything, at least the power is still on, despite whatever happened here. Maybe, despite appearances, there is still order here. Still people in charge. He fights the urge to turn around, make sure nothing is following him--the thought of someone grabbing him from behind sends shivers down his spine. Maybe it’s the paranormal investigator in him talking, but Mount Massive is definitely haunted. He’d do an episode about it on Unsolved, if it weren’t, first of all, active, and second of all, run by a giant corporation whose sheer power scares the shit out of him. Wouldn’t want to say the wrong thing and go missing, or end up with his headless corpse in a ditch. He’s read enough horror stories from former Murkoff lackeys to know that he doesn’t want to fuck with it.

Ryan reaches the apparent end of the hallway; it continues on after that, but a glass door blocks him from going any further. He turns, and the last door on the left is a men’s bathroom; a vent grille has been ripped from the ceiling duct. Maybe climbing through the air duct would let him bypass the glass? He’s probably small enough, and he may as well give it a shot.

If he thought the smell of blood wafting down the hallway was gross, the stench hanging in the air in here is downright nauseating. The source isn’t immediately apparent: there’s blood on the floor, but nobody wounded, no corpse. Ryan can hear his own blood pounding in his ears; the thought of continuing, as he stands in this stinking bathroom, seems so extraordinarily stupid that not even he would entertain it.

But, as always, he does.

Clambering into the air duct is practically a Herculean task--he has to jump to actually get up to it, and it’s claustrophobic inside. The metal walls of it are wide enough to accommodate his shoulders, but only just--but remarkably soon, he is on the move. Peering through grilles into other rooms doesn’t get him very far; the same monotonous beige psychiatrist’s offices, and not a single hint that there was anything alive at all in the building.

He eventually reaches the end of the duct; kicking the grille out of his way isn’t easy, and a significant drop to the floor knocks some of the air out of Ryan’s lungs. The wall ahead of him is made of warped glass--he can see down into the lobby, and can just barely make out what looks like more blood--god, what is it with the blood in this place?--and a person! An actual human being, sitting at the front desk! But they don’t seem to be moving at all.

The hallway in front of him is blocked by a toppled bookshelf. Why is there a bookshelf here? Scuff marks on the floor tell him that it wasn’t before, and that someone or something had dragged it there, and something occurred to smash it. What, though, and why block off a section of the corridor? There are doors along the hallway; he’ll have to hope one of the rooms has another door on the other side of the barricade. He opens one marked “library”, and finds--

It takes a couple of seconds for Ryan’s brain to catch up; only the sound of _it_ hitting the floor makes him realize what he’s seeing. He lets out a sound somewhere between a yell and a whimper, and has to fight the urge to puke.

A corpse.

An actual, human, honest-to-god fucking corpse was dangling from a suspended cable. It hit the ground because the weight was too much, and the cord snapped...

Jesus fucking Christ. Is this why no one was around, why there was so much blood? _Is everyone dead_?

A wild look around the room reveals that this poor fuck with the cable wasn’t the only one. There are other bodies scattered throughout the room, bookshelves and desks toppled and smashed, light fixtures broken, and...heads. Human heads lined up on lower shelves like bottles behind a bar, dead Murkoff scientists hanging from the ceiling. It’s a wonder his brain hasn’t completely shut down yet; maybe shock is what’s letting him stand here, open-mouthed, unseeing.

He has to get out of here. Right fucking now. Fuck the email, fuck this place.

Inhaling sharply, he tries his best to stop _thinking_ about it. Stop making eye contact with the severed heads that are definitely staring at him. Slowly, as though he’s trying not to wake some sleeping horror, he starts moving to the other door.

A shock runs down his spine when a fucking _hand_ grabs him.

It’s all he can focus on now, the hand on his shoulder. Surely there’s no one alive here--but this isn’t a dead hand, it isn’t cold or stiff. He doesn’t want to turn around and face it, but he can’t bring himself to tear his arm from its grip. Fear seems to have rooted him in place; his legs are made of lead, and he couldn’t run if he wanted to, which he does. Very badly, actually.

The fingers tighten, and Ryan slowly becomes aware: someone in this room is breathing. Not just him. Ryan’s breathing is shaky, sucked through gritted teeth. _This_ breathing is slow, gurgling, like whoever it is is slowly drowning in their own vomit. Or blood.

Fine. Fine. God, his mind is melting.

He turns around fast, so fast he can hear his neck crack. Ryan’s brain lags again, but finally he can see: a man impaled like a pig on a spit, the moonlight streaming through the window behind him lighting up his awful silhouette.

“They,” the guy manages to choke. In a desperate bid to avoid looking at his twisted face, Ryan focuses on his body. His whole upper torso is a mess of blood and shredded flesh, pinned straight through the chest by an iron pole. He’s wearing body armour, so probably some kind of cop. What the fuck happened to him--and everyone else? Does he even want to know?

The cop makes a gurgling noise deep in his throat, sucks in a breath. “They killed us,” he hisses. “They got out. The _variants_.” He practically spits this last word, and confused though he is, Ryan can’t work up the nerve to ask what he means by _variant_.

“You can’t...you can’t fight them. You have to hide...can unlock the main doors from...from Security Control.” He shifts a bit, like he’s trying to pull himself off the makeshift spear. Both of them know it’s hopeless. “ _Get the fuck_ _out_.”

Yeah, okay, thanks for nothing, Ryan arrived at that conclusion ten minutes ago. Would’ve been nice to hear when he could still leave the way he came.

A pause. The cop’s breathing slows, and Ryan wonders vaguely if he’s about to die. Obviously he will die, but is he doing it _right_ _now_? From the look of things, he is. Even through the shock, some part of Ryan’s brain urges him forward, says, _comfort him_.  He can't quite bring himself to touch the dying cop, but Ryan's there to watch as he dies, his breath slowing and finally stopping altogether, the blood flowing from his chest starting to clot.

After all is said and done, he’s left staring at the impaled corpse and dissociating spectacularly. 

He shakes his head, and slowly, slowly, slowly makes his way to the other door.

Maybe it’s the trauma, but he’s exhausted. All he’s really done is climb up a ladder and through an air duct, but he’s so tired it feels like he could collapse right here. He shoves open the door and steps back into the hallway, on the other side of the bookcase, and hears footsteps around the corner. Not normal human being footsteps, but the kind that shake the floor; whoever’s walking around must be absolutely massive. Ryan would be relieved, but he doesn’t actually know if this person is a variant, whatever the hell that means. What if they were responsible for the... _massacre_ in the library? Whoever it is seems to be walking away from him, so he decides to follow them at a cautious distance. Maybe they’ll lead him to Security Control or something.

The person (possible variant?) ducks into an office of some sort, so Ryan’s left to anxiously half-walk half-run down the hallway, looking for stairs, or maybe a door marked Security Control, which feels a little too easy, but he can dream. He’s about to wriggle his way through yet another pile of debris when someone grabs his arm.

“ _LITTLE PIG_!”

The giant is there, and time grinds to a screeching halt. All Ryan can see is the “man” in front of him--if he could even be called as such. This... _thing_ is absolutely enormous, at least seven feet tall, and most of his body appears to be solid muscle; there’s flesh ripped from the forehead, half the bottom lip hacked away, revealing swollen gums and bloody teeth. The eyes are blue and hazy and chock fucking full of _loathing_ , as if he doesn’t see Ryan but hates him regardless. He yanks Ryan back hard enough to rip his arm from its socket; if time had seemed to stop, now it's on fast-forward. Everything happens so fast that he doesn’t have time to process the pain, and the giant shoves him through the glass, plummeting him to the floor of the lobby.

 

Cut to black. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is actually the last of my pre-written chapters (i wrote chapters one, two, and three way back in july, and only just worked up the nerve to post them here lmao) which means i'm actually gonna need a schedule?? i'll try to update on sundays, maybe, and as ever, please let me know what u liked and what u think can be improved! it means a lot to me haha

**Author's Note:**

> please tell me what you think, and what can be improved! this is my first time posting anything on here haha


End file.
